Delve into the seamy underside of eighteenth-century Paris in this gripping short story from beloved British author Wilkie Collins. The fair penitent of the title is a renowned stage actress who... More > decides to give up her life of cultural refinement and cushy creature comforts to seek out a more spiritually fulfilling path. Will she find a way to make things right and repent?< Less

The Moonstone was described by T. S. Eliot as "the first and greatest of English detective novels."
Published in 1868, it is one of the two books (with The Woman in White) for which... More > Collins is most famous. Several incidents in the story are taken from the real life Constance Kent Road Case and the plot is Collins at his diabolical best. Many of the story's elements have since become classic features of the detective novel: the eventual conviction of the least-likely suspect; a bungling investigation led by local police and taken over by a more perceptive, slightly eccentric detective, the idea of a 'mcguffin' or object (in this case a diamond) that everyone wants and around which the plot pivots - to name but a few of the classic tropes first seen here.
This complete unabridged edition includes original illustrations from the rare late-Victorian book Magic by Albert A. Hopkins specially formatted for digital readers.< Less

From the author of The Moonstone and The Woman in White comes another gripping Victorian sensation novel. A sinister Countess is driven mad by a dark secret. An innocent woman is made the instrument... More > of retribution. A murdered man’s fury reaches beyond the grave.
When Countess Narona marries Agnes Lockwood’s fiancé and takes him to live in a rundown Venetian palace, strange things start happening, a servant mysteriously vanishes, and the husband dies a recluse. But the dead won’t rest. When the palace is transformed into a hotel the two women are drawn to its chambers, where a force stronger than death is waiting to wreak its vengeance ...< Less

From the author of The Moonstone and The Woman in White comes another gripping Victorian sensation novel. A sinister Countess is driven mad by a dark secret. An innocent woman is made the instrument... More > of retribution. A murdered man’s fury reaches beyond the grave.
When Countess Narona marries Agnes Lockwood’s fiancé and takes him to live in a rundown Venetian palace, strange things start happening, a servant mysteriously vanishes, and the husband dies a recluse. But the dead won’t rest. When the palace is transformed into a hotel the two women are drawn to its chambers, where a force stronger than death is waiting to wreak its vengeance ...< Less

A sinister Countess is driven mad by a dark secret. An innocent woman is made the instrument of retribution. A murdered man's fury reaches beyond the grave.
From the author of The Moonstone and The... More > Woman in White comes another gripping Victorian sensation novel.
When Countess Narona marries Agnes Lockwood's fiancé and takes him to live in a rundown Venetian palace, strange things start happening, a servant mysteriously vanishes, and the husband dies a recluse. But the dead won't rest. When the palace is transformed into a hotel the two women are drawn to its chambers, where a force stronger than death is waiting to wreak its vengeance ...< Less

Antonina was Collins's first published novel, it was written in a laborious, deliberately florid style using detail from Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and modelled on Bulwer-Lytton's... More > The Last Days of Pompeii (1834). The plot is challenging, with many passages reading like a cross between a guide book to ancient Rome (based on Collins's visit in 1837) and a description of his father's paintings. The story begins in the Rome of 408 AD, where the young Antonina lives with her father Numerian, zealous in his aims to restore the Christian faith to its former ideals. Numerian's steward, Ulpius, brought up in the old religion, secretly lives only to restore the forbidden gods of pagan sacrifice. Vetranio, their wealthy neighbour, has designs on the innocent Antonina. When they are surprised by Numerian in an apparently compromising situation, Antonina flees outside the city walls just before Rome is blockaded by the encircling army of the Goths< Less

Jezebel's Daughter ,by Wilkie Collins, is a novel published in 1880 ,based on the 1858 play, The Red Vial.
The novel is notable for the way it handles the treatment of lunatics and the mentally... More > retarded; and for the creation of a female character who is effective both in business and as a philanthropist
The plot centres around the firm of Wagner, Keller and Engelman, which has offices in London and Frankurt. After the death of her husband, Mrs Wagner becomes senior partner
Ager to continue her late husband’s philanthropic activities, she befriends Jack Straw, an inmate of Bedlam, and takes him to live with her in order to prove that ‘lunatics’ are not beyond redemption.
. The plot revolves around the use of poisons and includes forensic details applicable to detective fiction.< Less

Hint: You can preview this book by clicking on "Preview" which is located under the cover of this book.
About the author:
William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889)... More > was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868), considered the first modern English detective novel.Born into the family of painter William Collins in London, he lived with his family in Italy and France as a child and learned French and Italian. He worked as a clerk for a tea merchant. After his first novel Antonina was published in 1850, he met Charles Dickens, who became a close friend, mentor and collaborator.
Excerpt from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkie_Collins< Less

The Woman in White is an epistolary novel written by Wilkie Collins in 1859, serialized in 1859–1860, and first published in book form in 1860. It is considered to be among the first mystery... More > novels and is widely regarded as one of the first (and finest) in the genre of 'sensation novels'.
As was customary at that time, The Woman in White was first published as a magazine serial. The first episode appeared on 29 November 1859, following Charles Dickens's own A Tale of Two Cities in Dickens's magazine All the Year Round in England, and Harper's Magazine in America. It caused an immediate sensation. Julian Symons (in his 1974 introduction to the Penguin edition) reports that "queues formed outside the offices to buy the next instalment. Bonnets, perfumes, waltzes and quadrilles were called by the book's title. Gladstone cancelled a theatre engagement to go on reading it. And Prince Albert sent a copy to Baron Stockmar."< Less

A delightful tale of thwarted ambition and forbidden love, A Rogue’s Life follows the fortunes of an endearing young man. Proffering his own take on picaresque storytelling—and with many... More > a grain of truth for twenty-somethings today—this is Wilkie Collins at his entertaining best. Propelled into society by his ever-hopeful father, Frank Softly is introduced to a variety of professions in order to make his fortune. Not industrious by nature, however, Frank finds working life a challenge, and by his 25th birthday, he has failed medicine, portrait-painting, caricaturing, and even forgery. Disenchanted with life, he despairs of ever finding something to commit to—until he meets Alicia Dulcifer and her inexplicably wealthy father.< Less

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